This invention relates to a data printing method of printing data using a small printer on a print sheet and, in particular, to a data printing method capable of facilitating classification and identification of data items and reducing a printing cost. This invention also relates to a commodity data register using the data printing method.
In sales and service industry, a commodity data register is widely used in shops, restaurants, and so on. Typically, the commodity data register uses a small printer adapted to print commodity data on a print sheet having a narrow width, for example, 58 mm. On the print sheet having such a narrow width, only a limited number of characters can be printed. Specifically, the print sheet having the width of 58 mm allows 34 characters each having a width of 12 bits to be printed per line. In an existing data printing method using a small printer, line separation or paragraph separation is used so that the commodity data printed on the print sheet can easily be recognized.
For example, the print sheet may be a receipt used in a shop to confirm a commodity item and the quantity and the price of the commodity item upon purchasing the commodity item. Alternatively, the print sheet may be a kitchen order sheet (hereinafter simply called a kitchen sheet) used in a restaurant and issued to a cook to inform a customer's order printed thereon.
In the data printing method using a small printer, it is important to allow easy recognition of, for example, a commodity name printed on the print sheet in order to reduce an error in business operations. On the other hand, as for the small printer, monochromic printing is a mainstream. Therefore, in practical use, individual commodity items are printed in different or separate lines, respectively.
For example, in a receipt 1 illustrated in FIG. 1, individual commodity items are printed in separate lines, respectively. For a commodity set without unit prices for individual items, line separation and paragraph indentation are used in combination. Thus, the commodity items are easy to recognize. On the other hand, it is necessary for a customer who purchases the commodity items as purchased items to classify and exactly know the purchased items in order to control a budget. However, in case where a large number of commodity items are simultaneously purchased, the number of lines printed on the receipt is great. For example, in family budget management, an operation of recording the purchased items in an account book requires a troublesome work and suffers easy occurrence of error because commodity classifications, such as daily-use articles and food articles, are not shown on the receipt.
Similarly, in a kitchen sheet 2 illustrated in FIG. 2, separate paragraphs correspond to different table numbers, respectively, to help easy recognition of commodity names. However, the kitchen sheet 2 lacks any classification by ingredients or recipes, which would be convenient for the cook, and is therefore inconvenient.
Thus, each of the receipt 1 illustrated in FIG. 1 and the kitchen sheet 2 illustrated in FIG. 2 has no commodity classification and requires manual operation in sorting the commodity items. This results in easy occurrence of error.
In view of the above, proposal has been made of a commodity sales data registration processor comprising a color printer as a small printer for printing commodity data using different colors assigned to commodity classifications, respectively (see Japanese Patent Application Publication (JP-A) No. H10-143764).
However, in the above-mentioned proposal also, only a limited number of characters are printed on the receipt or the kitchen sheet having a limited width. Even if line separation or paragraph separation is used, a long commodity name may not be printed within a single line. In this event, the commodity name is inevitably abbreviated. Further, the color printer which is expensive must be used to sort the items.
As described above, the commodity names are printed on the print sheet of a limited width line by line. Some of the commodity names in a same group or classification may be printed using paragraph indentation. If the commodity name is long, the commodity name may be printed in two lines or may be abbreviated. In this event, it is difficult to identify or confirm the commodity name.
As one approach, the commodity names may be distinguished by color information. In this case, however, a printing cost is high because the color printer and a multicolor ink are required.
On the other hand, in case where short commodity names are consecutively printed line after line, a large blank space is uselessly left on the print sheet. In this event, consumption of the print sheet is increased and a running cost is elevated.